• Locality
  • Mine (Tsumeb Mine, Sweet Home Mine, etc.)
  • Geographic or geological region (e.g., Pala CA Mining District, the Alps, etc.)
  • State (often the collector’s home state)
• Mineral Species
  • Azurite
  • Quartz
  • Pyromorphite
  • Zircon
• Oddities
  • Stalactites
  • Balls
  • Pseudomorphs
  • Twinned crystals
• Geological Environments
  • Pegmatites
  • Skarns
  • Oxidation zones
• Chemical Categories
  • Phosphates
  • Lead minerals
  • Silver minerals
• Dana Category
  • Sulfates (Creedite, Gypsum, Hanksite)
  • Oxides (Anatase, Corundum, Hematite)
  • Carbonates (Azurite, Calcite, Smithsonite)
  • Native elements (Gold, Copper, Mercury)
• Ore Minerals
  • Crystallized
  • Massive
• Metaphysical Properties
  • Healing crystals
  • Meditation crystals
  • Crystals for specific metaphysical uses, such as deflecting negativity, increasing awareness, etc.
• Gemstones
  • Cut gemstones
  • Gem crystals
• Other Specialties
  • Brightly colored minerals
  • Specimens with intense color contrast
  • Specimens with good investment value

Any two or more of these basic categories may be combined to create an even more focused specialty. For example, some collectors focus on pairing a cut gemstone with a gem crystal of the same species.

Another category (sort of) is what I call the “lightning bolt” collector. I first heard this term when I was set up out in Tucson; it was used to describe collectors who only buy specimens when they are hit by “lightning” – the intense desire to possess a certain specimen. My cynical field collecting buddies call this phenomenon mineral “lust”.

Whatever specialty attracts you, choosing an area to focus on is worth considering for several reasons. One is that it conserves funds: if your focus is on copper minerals, you won’t spend your budget on any of the hundreds of other attractive mineral species. If your focus is on a local mineral or area, you will have greater access to those specimens than you will to specimens in other specialties. Also, within the limits of a specialty, there is a lot less to be learned. This makes it possible to achieve an advanced level of connoisseurship in a certain area relatively quickly, compared to generalists who have no specialty. Finally, specialty suites of minerals may be easier and more lucrative to sell (especially as a whole), because the higher quality level of the specimens makes them more valuable, and because another collector with the same specialty will find your collection especially interesting.

The only real danger of specialization is being too narrowly focused. Lack of perspective can be easily avoided by gaining a good general mineralogical/geological background, and not focusing all efforts on a single specialty.

We’ll be glad to talk with you about your prospective specialty, if you haven’t selected one yet; you can email us at eric@treasuremountainmining.com . And, if you already are building a suite, take a look around our website, where we may have just the fine mineral specimen you’ve been looking for.